For reasons this selfish, don’t procreate
Dear Carolyn: My wife really wants to have a baby, and I don’t. I am willing to have one, for her, but I dislike children and probably would avoid ours as much as possible. But I love being with my wife, and I’m afraid this will lead to our growing apart. She loves kids, but is willing to not have one, for me. However, I don’t want to see her unhappy and regretful the rest of her life. We’re old enough that we have to make a decision fairly soon. Please help. – S.
Sure. Keep waiting anyway, until you’re old enough to think of someone besides yourselves.
“Have a baby” sounds so cuddly and abstract. I hope a more accurate term will show what you’re really admitting here: Your wife wants to create a person – and she’d be no fun for you anymore if she were unhappy, so you’ll help her create one even though you intend to go out of your way to avoid this person.
Did your father not want you, either? Is this some kind of payback?
Early childhood is fleeting. The sense that one’s own father doesn’t want you, much less acknowledge that you have feelings – and, maybe even worse, that one’s mother chose to indulge her own desires instead of protecting you from an indifferent father – will stay with a person for life. Your person. Your child.
Not everyone who has children loves to be around children. But it would be unconscionable to have one when you don’t feel a profound sense of responsibility to be there and to show steady, devoted and fierce love and support.
Carolyn: How do you know if you want kids? My husband and I agreed before we married that one would be OK, but deep in his heart he is terrified and views it as the end of money, sex, sleep, nice vacations, a social life and hobbies. I always have wanted kids but lately question myself, probably because of his reaction. It’s the biggest decision there is, and neither of us wants the other to be resentful for life. He’s hoping that, once born, our theoretical baby will change his mind, as some of his friends have told him, but what if it doesn’t? Also, he travels for work, so I’ll be a single mom (and most likely working) a lot of the time. – J.
It is the end of money, sex, sleep, nice vacations, social life and hobbies – as you know them. It’s also the beginning of stuff you can’t even imagine.
And that’s why the decision’s so tough: You can’t know what you’ll get till you get there, and when you’re there, you can’t go back.
Fortunately there are some evolutionary safeguards, as your husband’s friends describe; babies are wuvable for a weason. Plus, every pre-parent, deep in his heart, is terrified.
Unfortunately, those safeguards aren’t always so simple – you can simultaneously love your kids and miss your freedom – and they aren’t guarantees against parents who shouldn’t have kids.
The yea- or nay-maker, I guess, is commitment. Are you ready to be the kind of parents you’d want? No matter what happens? If you’re ready to say yes, you’re ready to say yes. And that’s as close to your decision as outsiders like me can get.